Embodiments of the present disclosure relate in general to a fault tolerant inverter and/or controlled rectifier topologies.
Inverters are commonly used to drive induction motors. In many modern applications, such motors can also act as generators, with the inverter configured to act as a controlled bridge rectifier.
As will be appreciated, a typical inverter includes a number of switch devices which are often transistor based switch devices (such as insulated-gate bipolar transistors). The failure of one or more of the switch devices will disrupt the operation of the inverter and, depending on the application, may mean that the motor can no longer be operated until the inverter is repaired.
In some applications the repair of the inverter is difficult or impossible. Indeed, in some applications, the downtime cost due to the length of time and process required to repair the inverter can be considerably more than the cost of the failed switch device.
Accordingly, embodiments of the present disclosure seek to alleviate one or more problems associated with the prior art.